Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Greetings!I’m sitting on my couch in the living room, soaking up the sun.We’ve seen too little of it recently and I need a “sun fix!”I’m also enjoying the quiet house – three of my children are sleeping and the fourth is doing his homework.I’ve learned to savor these moments.They seem to come less and less often as my children are growing older.

I want to acknowledge a friend of mine, Mary Hill.She’s taken the initiative to ask if we can collaborate on our monthly newsletter.I’m so happy to have her help in gathering stories and information about how people like you are enjoying the products we sell.We’ll be working together on our newsletters in future months.Thanks Mary!

Children are such a big part of our lives, aren’t they?As parents, grandparents, aunts & uncles and friends, we want what’s best for the children in our lives.My mom gave me the gift of this company's products when I was five – so when I was pregnant with my first child, my first gift to him was this brand of all-natural vitamins instead of synthetic prenatal vitamins.

In this month’s issue, we focus on children:

1.Eco-Friendly House

2.Air Quality affects Infant Health

3.Book Review: The Hundred-Year Lie

4.What Kids Love

5.Best Baby Shower Gifts

6.Current Promotions

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1. Eco-Friendly House

We all want our homes to be a healthy place for us and our families.Unfortunately, some of the products readily available on the market today are full of chemicals that are harmful to our health.These products are “off-gassing” all the time – letting of those chemicals into the air for us and our families to breathe.

Companies are responding to the growing concern about indoor air quality and “off-gassing” by bringing us more products made without these dangerous chemicals. I came across an article recently which gave some examples of eco-friendly products, including paints, furniture and bedding.The last part of the article caught my eye:

CARPETING Studies indicate that a baby crawling across a carpet can inhale the same amount of carcinogenic materials that it would if it had smoked three cigarettes a day. You can change that by vacuuming regularly, using nontoxic cleansers and buying special flooring, like InterfaceFLOR carpet tiles, which you can mix and match for a custom look.

My husband and I decided to replace all the flooring in our house when we moved in.It was not an inexpensive decision, but we knew that with my and our youngest’s allergies, it was the smartest thing to do.We went with laminate flooring – which I’m sure off-gasses some nasty chemicals.It was the best we could do financially, and since we have an AirSource 3000 air purifier, Iwas confident that the air in our home would be healthy for us all.We did leave the air purifier on for a few days in the house before we moved everything in – to get rid of the paint fumes and the gasses from the laminate flooring.

To make your home more eco-friendly for your family, the first step would be to switch cleaners.Of course, I recommend environmentally-friendly, non-toxic cleaners for safe, effective and economical cleaners.I also highly recommend this air purifier. This purifier is powerful enough to clean the air in your whole house, requires maintenance only once a year, and is quite cost-effective.

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2.Air Quality affects Infant Health

Of course, this article caught my eye!It’s a logical next step after the last article’s comment: “a baby crawling across a carpet can inhale the same amount of carcinogenic materials that it would if it had smoked three cigarettes a day.”Of course, his/her health will be affected.

Here’s the beginning of the article:

Compounds found in air in the home could pose more of a health risk to breast-fed babies than chemicals they are exposed to through their mother's milk, researchers in the United States said.

They found that a nursing infant's exposure to gases known as volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from indoor air was 25-135-fold higher than from breast milk.

"We ought to focus our efforts on reducing indoor air sources of these compounds," said Sungroul Kim of JohnsHopkinsBloombergSchool of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland.

VOCs are gases emitted from certain solids and fluids such as paints, cleaning supplies, building materials, printers, glues and photographic solutions.

I would put this book as a must-read for everyone.As a journalist, I’ve been reading lots of different articles (both on- and off-line), and wondering about which one I can trust.I remember enough from my probability and statistics class in high school (!) to know that numbers can be manipulated and to watch sample sizes of studies, etc.However, I don’t have the time to track down all the sources of the articles I read to see if the conclusions drawn are valid, nor do I have the scientific background to understand some of the studies.

Randall Fitzgerald is an investigative journalist who became concerned “for members of (his) family who seemed to be on a slippery slope of health dilemmas” (pg 1). His concern led him down a path of investigating modern food and medical practices.

The book is titled The Hundred-Year Lie based upon the year the US Congress enacted the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906.It was “a law that for the first time gave Americans the illusion of food and drug safety and provided a legal standard for most other governments of the world to follow” (pg 62).

Throughout his book, Fitzgerald repeatedly emphasizes that we cannot assume the government is looking out for our well-being.We assume that if the chemicals we use daily were bad for us, the government would take them off the market.This is simply not the case.

He takes us through many “Myths We Cherish” and “Disturbing Trends” in America today.I found his book well-written and well-documented.Some authors who approach this type of work get hysterical and dramatic.Fitzgerald avoids such hysteria, calmly laying out studies and statistics.

For example, “Today, the vitamin industry is dominated by six pharmaceutical companies that produce about 97-percent of all raw materials for the synthetic vitamins we find on store shelves.Their vitamins are made from coal tars and use artificial colorings, preservatives, disintegrents, coating materials, and other additives” (pg 137).I’m so glad I can say, except this company!

And, “FormerHarvardBotanicalMuseum researcher Andrew Weil laments how in the West, ‘science and medicine have separated themselves from nature and separated us from nature.’Healing is a natural process, ‘and if you want to understand healing and how to make people better, you must understand the ways of nature.’ ” (pg 177).Which again points me back to the company I represent: “science in harmony with nature.” It has always had whole-food based supplements.The philosophy of their scientists has been, “if it’s in nature, there must be a reason, so we keep it in the final product.”

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4. What Kids Love… and Parents too!

Mary & I both started our children young on this brand of vitamins.We started with this powdered vitamin mix for infants, and as soon as they had molars and could chew (about two years), switched them over to childrens' vitamins.(My first hint that Isaac was ready for the chewables was when he stole his sister’s vitamin, chewed it and swallowed before I could react.Quite frankly I was shocked.However, once the infant mix was done, we immediately switched him to a half-dose of the chewables – he was about 20 months.)

In fact, when I started my older children on this brand of children vitamins, I was able to tell them that these were the same vitamins Mommy had taken as a child.That spoke to me of the consistency and integrity of this company.Since then, they reformulated the children’s vitamins according to the latest research and introduced a reformulated chewable.My children LOVEthem.

“After years of searching, I found no other products that match [this company's] uncompromising scientific standard of quality, safety, and efficacy. I do not hesitate to recommend [this brand's] Children's Health products to my patients, family, and friends.”

Dr. Linda Rodriguez - Pediatrician, Mother, and Business Leader

“I was looking for vitamins that would be safe and just right for (my children). So we looked into (this company’s) powder mix which is wonderful… Both of my children use it and we just mix it into their juice and they don't even know the difference. My sister is now giving it to her children also. We love the product and when they outgrow it, we will then use the [chewables]. Keeping [this brand of] products in our family… we LOVE [THEM].”

Children also love the company's all-natural, organic toothpaste – and so do I!I love not having to worry about the children swallowing toothpaste with fluoride in it.Have you read the warning sign on toothpaste?“WARNING: Keep out of reach of children under 6 years of age. If YOU (this means anyone, not just the child) accidentally swallow more than used for brushing, seek professional help or contact a poison control center immediately.”

Did you know that the American Dental Association is concerned about the fluoride level in infants?

In a little-noticed but dramatic turnaround, the nation's leading fluoride advocate, The American Dental Association (ADA), issued an alert on November 9, 2006 urging parents to avoid fluoridated water when reconstituting infant formula, warning that "Infants less than one year old may be getting more than the optimal amount of fluoride if their primary source of nutrition is powdered or liquid infant formula mixed with water containing fluoride."

The dentists are worried that fluoride exposure at this age will permanently damage teeth, not protect them. A growing body of research also links fluoride to weakened bones, reduced thyroid activity, and possibly bone cancer in boys.

The advice, however, has gone largely unheeded. Nursery Water, the nation's leading fluoridated water for babies still markets its product nationwide at Wal*Mart and other major retailers.

With all the toxins our children are exposed to in this world, the best gift we can give them is healthy skin.Our skin absorbs whatever is put on it so quickly – don’t we want to make sure what we put on it is safe?

I give this brand of all-natural baby shampoo & bath at every baby shower.I feel confident giving mothers of new babies such a safe product.As with all of this company's products, they combined the power of science with specifically selected natural ingredients that are safe for you and your kids.My children love the lightly fragranced shampoo, and it really cleans them up too.It is completely non-irritating, tear free, pH balanced and biodegradable.

Mary also recommends this creamy baby oil too.“It absorbs faster and is less greasy, contains Vitamin E and allantoin to help soothe tender skin while helping to prevent dryness and irritation.pH balanced for baby’s delicate skin, with no mineral oil or petroleum based ingredients.”

“Thanks you so much for the [all-natural] baby products! I have been using them on Addison every night.It took about a week of shampooing and using the cream on her head, but the cradle cap is all gone.Plus, it’s not greasy at all!